Speedrunning

After watching the Olympics unfold, and seeing all the competition and World Records being broken, it got me to thinking about Speedrunning. Though I wouldn't go as far as saying that playing a video game fast was a sport, it shares many similarities that I have failed to grasp properly over the last 3 years that i've spent doing it.

Every Olympic athlete will spend years of their life training and practicing in their sport. The amount of time and effort they put in, and the sacrifices they make, is unbelievable. When it comes down to it, they break their Personal Records, World Records etc. and push themselves further and further. I'm not saying that as a speedrunner I should be making this many sacrifices in life and it's certainly not as worth it to spend the time on Video Games than it is to spend it on an Olympic Sport... but putting time and effort into the hobby is one thing that I, and many others, seem to overlook.

I've spent the better part of 16 months doing KH2 Speedruns. In that time I've achieved the following -

Any% - PB'd twice. From 4:01:54 to 4:01:22 to 4:00:49.
All Worlds - PB'd three times. Pushed WR down to 5:14:52.
JJ 100% - PB'd twice. From 12:25 to 11:49 to 11:37.

Any% has been terrible. My beginning games have been incredibly lacking and i'm not seeing any runs where i'm ahead past the middle of the speedrun.

All Worlds was cool, but the WR is incredibly unoptimal and has plenty of timesaves everywhere.

JJ 100% I haven't focused on and learnt the route for, PBs are not good.

I've literally achieved nothing worth of merit in those 16 months. And this is PURELY because I don't put the time in.

Like every athlete at the Olympics, like every professional video games, it takes time and practice and repetition for you to improve yourself to the best that you can be. If i'm not playing my speedgame every day, and spending at least a couple hours practicing it pretty much everyday - i'm not going to be improving at all. My gameplay is sloppy and full of rust, and this is just a continuous thing right now. I always heard from Liquid how he'd spend 5-6 hours a day practicing a lot of the time before starting his attempts - and it never really sunk in just how incredibly helpful that is. He pushed himself hard and improved because of it. Sure, he has natural skill, but without that practice there's no way he would be as great as he currently is.

If you push yourself and focus on your goals and what is needed to achieve them -
 It's totally possible.

Considering how much I care for speedrunning, how much this passion drives me and fuels me, and the feeling of pride after getting a PB or World Record (A feeling that I can barely even remember), I know it's worth it for me to put in the time that is needed to truly improve and become the great speedrunner that I know I can be.

I'm done with making false promises to myself and others that I'll do more runs or that i'll practice. This stops TODAY. I'm so over doing terrible speedruns and feeling bad about how i'm playing all the time. Things are about to change.

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be fixing a few things. First of all - my sleeping schedule needs to change from its current state which is around 4am to 12pm. I'll be sleeping much earlier and waking up much earlier, so I can be active during the day and be able to focus on my Speedruns. I will be making practice splits and doing practice RTAs regularly, putting a lot of effort into self improvement and making frame-saving advances in my route and execution. This is something I know that i'm capable of, and if I enter this with a positive mindset, I will make it happen. I've said countless times over the past year how bad a speedrunner I am - but it's simply my mindset and work ethic that needs remedying.

With the 1.5 Tournament coming up this is the PERFECT time to put into practice what i've talked about. 1.5 will be my main focus until the conclusion of the Tournament. I'll be making the full switch to Japanese, learning Menus and getting used to the button configuration. Hours of practice per day can only aid me in this and that's exactly what I plan to do. I'm not going to set myself an arbitrary goal like 2:52 or 2:49 right now - i'm just going to see how this new approach to speedrunning goes for me. I'm hoping the preperation I do for the Tournament will help me achieve a solid placement in it, and then i'll be ready to move back to KH2 with a positive mindset focused on practicing and improving at the game daily, so I can finally reach my goals of Sub 4 and beyond.

If you're unhappy with your current position in speedrunning, and haven't been PBing, all I can say is that you need to play the game more. Play it more and you will succeed.

This was a mouthful and probably illegible, I apologize for that.

Let's go,
iiSalad.